A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

attention. Without knowing why, I picked up a pencil and a pad that were lying near my bed.
My hand began to write in another handwriting. I looked at the handwriting and it was strangely
familiar, but I knew it was not my own. I realized that somebody else was using my hand.” 217
Here, in the perceived mode of contact, Martin was made the instrument of another’s will,
recalling the werkzeug of the shakers and the mesmeric somnambule and, in short, the whole
feminized apparatus of the displaced utopian imaginary. Upon inquiring as to the identity of her
interlocutor, Martin was surprised to find that it was none other than her deceased father who
controlled her hand. His message was fairly banal, as messages from the dead often were. It
consisted mainly of instructions for Martin’s mother regarding the spring planting in the garden.
The message also included some rather vague descriptions of life in “the astral.” Dorothy
dutifully conveyed the message to her mother and was told in no uncertain terms to keep any
further such messages to herself. Thus the first message received by Dorothy was squarely in the
spiritualist tradition, both in the mode of its reception and in the banality of its content.
Prior to her spiritualist encounter Dorothy Martin had already developed a strong interest
in the occult, an interest that began with attending a series of theosophical lectures. She had also
exposed herself to the work of Guy Ballard who communicated to her “the idea that one might
‘walk in the light’ of superior knowledge.” 218
She was a participant in Dianetics and OAHSPE.
While the reader doubtless has at least a passing familiarity with the former, the reference to
OAHSPE probably requires some explanation. OAHSPE, also known as Kosmon, emerged in
1881 in the form of the “new bible,” dictated to Dr. John Ballou Newbrough. The central tenet
of the resultant text is that humanity was entering a new age, the new Kosmon era, in which Man
will become God. “It’s time for a change of gods. The old gods—Allah, Buddha, Christ,
217 Festinger 33.
218 Festinger 34.
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